The work is dated 1721, a year after the Mass and its gradual “Audi, filia,” and the commissions came from a fellow Neapolitan, Cardinal Acquaviva, who consecrated the church of Santa Caecilia in Trastevere a few years earlier.

McGegan has accomplished a great deal with his San Francisco-based orchestra since 1981 (the chorale under Bruce Lamott dates from 1995). The soloists have all worked with McGegan in the past as well as under the usual suspects in early-music conducting. The youngest is tenor Michael Slattery, who debuted under McGegan only three years ago. The choral and instrumental forces are strong, but the soloists sometimes hit their pitches in cruelly florid passages less accurately than they might have achieved in sessions apart from the pair of concerts that were captured here. Even so, the overall effect is grand, deserving of the high praise it has received. The chant antiphons are sung in the solemn style of the period. This offering fills a gap that has unaccountably been unfilled too long.

J. F. Weber, FANFARE